Hi all! Back in late October I was driving a 2012 Benz GLK350 and I had absolutely horrible gas mileage and the repairs were killing me. I had a bad credit score and decided to go out and get a new car. I tried multiple dealerships until one finally approved me with the credit score I had. Of course it had to be Toyota … Fast forward to leasing the car I was asked if I wanted all these protections (resist-all wax, wheel and tire protect, excess ware and tear) I said no to all of course. I also said no to this random insurance thing. Since my payments were high with my credit score being bad, I decided to put 4,500 down and my payment was still 450 a month. I obviously agreed to that and drove home with a smile because finally a dealer let me lease a car from them. Fast forward 7 months and this car is obsurdly slow, too small, and honestly isn’t a good image for me as I’m a realtor and a lot of clients see luxury cars as a image for you.
Deciding I want to get rid of the car, I obviously thought I could and went onto carvana, they offered me $29,100. Which I thought! Heck yes! I’ll be getting money back. After making about 7 payments which is roughly $3,000 and putting down $4,500 I thought I’d easily be getting money back since the cars msrp I’m leasing is 33k. Well I come to find out the dealership took ALL of my $4,500 and used that towards the random ass protections I said no to and they said they were going to throw in for free.
So now I am sitting here, out $4,500 and sitting with a car in my driveway that I am not happy to drive and have to pay upwards or more of $1000 to get out of.
Try Vroom, Carvana, etc but it doesn’t sound like there is much you can do if you don’t want to pay out of pocket to get out.
Didn’t you realize that you needed a luxury car earlier? If you can’t afford the $4,500 to get out of this should you be buying a luxury vehicle to begin with?
Please do not take this the wrong way but, as a realtor, how did you miss all of those packages added in your contract, when contracts are one of the most important things in your line of work?
Must be new to the real estate hustle. Either way here is my advice for you regarding your car image issue. I’ve bought coupe properties over the last ten years and not once did I care or even wanted to know what my broker was driving. If anything I’d be turned off by overtly expensive ride because honestly I don’t feel agents deserve more then 1% commission IMO.
Honestly was just in a rush to get out of the dealer after being there for hours and hours… I skimmed through it, looked at my downpayment, payment and agreed to it all.
Sold the benz privately. Before I didn’t really have horrible credit, but I had no credit, now with having this car for 7 months and making payments on time it is up to 720. I didn’t have anything in my name for 6+ years. A friend of mine suggested calling Toyota corp
It’s not so much that. If you are paying this much money a month for a car, wouldn’t you like having something you enjoy driving? As a car enthusiast I loved driving my Mercedes, it was fun to drive, cornered well, and was quick. RAV4 is nothing alike.
Is your credit score any better? If not, you should work on getting your score up first. You’re not going to get any deals with a bad credit score because you’ll just be grateful to get approved period, which is how you ended up with a RAV4. The RAV4 is a sensible vehicle. No ones going to look down on you for driving a late model RAV4 as a realtor. Just dress the part and respond to those 3am texts from anxious buyers.
Honestly was just in a rush to get out of the dealer after being there for hours and hours… I skimmed through it, looked at my downpayment, payment and agreed to it all. I was really trusting the sales man and taking what I could get at the time.
